I don’t know if heaven or hell exist, but if both do, then it seems there’s a 50% chance of a bad outcome. So, I’ve been asking people if they would want to be cryogenically preserved. That’s where, when you die, they freeze you at a super low temperature, and in the future, advanced medical technology thaws you, fixes what killed you, and you’re all good. Like in that cartoon, Futurama.

It’s funny, everyone said no. That surprised me. I don’t know if it’s because they believe in the afterlife and delude themselves into believing that they’re going to heaven. So, I ask, “What if there is no afterlife? No heaven or hell but some super boring existence, like watching endless reruns of 80s sitcoms?” Oh, wait, that would be hell. OK, maybe it’s like kicking a computer power cord out of the socket, your soul, memories, and everything just evaporate to entropy.

My point is, it’s not a sure thing. You don’t know if you’ll go to heaven, hell, purgatory, or nothing. So, why not roll the dice and turn yourself into a popsicle? Sure, that might not work, but heck, what’ve you got to lose?

Apparently, very few people find this option appealing, as official records indicate that only about 1,000 individuals have undergone cryopreservation since its inception in 1967. Even though it only costs about $150,000. I say only because last year about 3 million people died, and according to Kiplinger, 10% of them had over a million dollars when they passed. This means that 300,000 people per year easily possess the resources for cryopreservation. That’s less than 0.006% of those who could afford it since 1967 opting for it. That seemed improbable to me until I started informally polling people.

You might be wondering what’s my fascination with it is other than if hell exists, I might end up there. Well, back in the 80s, my uncle Bernie, who was really rich, used his money to buy gold and buried it on the family farm but told no one where. Then he had himself cryopreserved. His master plan was that when they thaw him out, he’ll dig up his gold. I guess he assumed that in the future, gold will still be valuable. He might be right. When I finished college in 1978, it was $200 an ounce, now it’s $5,000.

My dad said, knowing his brother Bernie, it was all a scam to get out of paying inheritance tax, and he hatched this whole story that no one knows where the gold is and my cousin Frank has all the gold. If so, Frank’s being very disciplined and not blowing it all on Lamborghinis and strippers.

However, gold may not hold much value in the future because CERN recently used the Large Hadron Collider to transform lead into gold, which was a dream of ancient alchemists. But the electricity needed cost 10,000 times more than the gold was worth. In the distant future, energy might become inexpensive due to advancements in nuclear fusion. There’s a bunch of companies working on fusion because of the high energy demand for AI so, suddenly they’re getting a ton of R&D money. One of them announced that AI is helping them develop fusion, and they will have practical fusion reactors available in 2028.

Bernie’s plan isn’t terrible, if you think about it. Maybe some people have their fingers crossed that they’ll go to heaven. But it’s hard to argue that the hope-on-hope plan is any better than Uncle Bernie’s plan. And who knows, maybe he went to heaven anyway because being unfrozen will never work. I even asked my pastor at church what happens to your soul if you are cryopreserved. She looked at me like I was crazy and said no one had ever asked her that before.

There aren’t many options. You can hope heaven exists and you’ll go there. Or go all in on health stuff, working out, eating right and hope that cloning and brain transplant gets invented before you croak. Or the singularity is perfected, where your consciousness can be uploaded to the cloud or into a robot. Or you can have yourself frozen for later. Is any one of those any better than the other?

Why do so few people choose to be frozen? It’s weird until I talked to my financial advisor about it, and he said that a lot of people are opting for cryogenic preservation, so they developed a special type of trust fund that continues after you have passed and been preserved. The reason for secrecy is related to probate. They worry their relatives will sue over it. So, they tell everyone they gave all their money to charity. The Bible says the root of all evil is the love of money. They better hope thawing out works, otherwise, they are definitely going to hell.

But when I think about the human popsicle option, for all I know, I might wake up in a world where everyone is a member of a bizarre Trump-worshiping cult, that would be hell for sure. Or what if weird alien monsters from outer space that eat humans take over our planet, and they’re all drooling over my nubile human flesh, they only thawed me out because they ate all the other humans. Or what if AI robots take over the planet and all humans are giant fat blobs that lay around watching AI-generated movies, and the robots feed them so they can harvest their fat to make oil to lubricate their gears. That’s more plausible than the plot in that stupid movie, The Matrix, where humans provided energy for robots. Duh, AI is inventing fusion, so why would they need humans for energy?

OK, so maybe cryogenic preservation has risks too. Heaven, hell, purgatory, nothingness, or weird futures. It’s the ultimate Hobson’s choice!